(WATCH) LA Fires


Once again, California’s tragic wildfires were predicted—and predictable. And once again, as they’ve done for years, they’re gobbling up billions in state and federal taxpayer dollars as critics ask why it seems to be deja vu all over again.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

The causes of at least six simultaneous fires in the Los Angeles area are still under investigation. Tens of thousands of acres burned. Dozens dead or missing. More than 10,000 homes and businesses reduced to ashes.

President Biden declared federal taxpayers will pick up 6 months’ of response and recovery costs.

President Biden: So today I’m announcing the federal government will cover 100% of the cost for 180 days.

While some are quick to fault climate change or Mother Nature, the hand of man is often to blame in California’s fire disasters, with arson and faulty utility Iines top causes.

Full Measure’s Lisa Fletcher covered the investigation into the state’s deadliest fire.

Lisa Fletcher: It was November of 2018, flames blew through Paradise in less than 24 hours, torching more than 31 square miles. It became known as the Camp Fire, killing 85 people and destroying nearly 19,000 homes. The fire was caused by electrical transmission lines, owned and operated by PG&E. According to a 700-page investigation by the state, PG&E failed to inspect and maintain an aging electrical tower. It wasn’t an isolated case. PG&E equipment reportedly sparked 19 major blazes in 2017 and 2018.

PG&E, pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and agreed to pay $13.5 billion to victims of the Camp Fire and other fires, and hundreds of millions to the local government.

With many open questions in the latest fires, critics point to man made contributors to the resulting disaster: fire department budget cuts, canceled insurance policies, corruption scandals, the state’s destruction of dams that once held crucial water, an empty water reservoir near the main fire and broken or dry fire hydrants.

California’s political and public officials have been mired in disarray. California Governor Gavin Newsom approached by a mom near her child’s burned out school.

Rachel Darvish: Governor please tell me what are you going to do right now?

Gavin Newsom: We’re getting the resources to help rebuild.

Darvish: Why was there no water in the hydrants, governor? Is it going to be different next time?

Newsom: It has to be.

When asked about supposedly dry hydrants, Newsom said this.

Newsom: Local folks are trying to figure that out. When you have a system, not dissimilar to what we’ve seen in other extraordinary large scale fires, whether it be pipe or electricity or whether it just be the complete overwhelm of the system. I mean, those hydrants are typical for two or three fires, maybe one fire.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass insists the $17 million in fire department budget cuts she pushed for didn’t impact the fires, contrary to a memo written earlier by the fire chief.

Karen Bass: I think if you go back and look at the reductions that were made, there were no reductions that were made that would have impacted the situation that we were dealing with over the last couple of days.

Meantime, LA’s fire chief and the head of the water department, she’s paid $750,000 a year and came from the beleaguered PG&E, had emphasized equity as a top priority.

Janisse Quiñones: It’s important to me that everything we do it’s with an equity lens and social justice, and making sure that we right the wrongs that we’ve done in the past.

Add to the list of unforced errors the state poorly maintaining forests and vegetation. Experts have told us that’s a big reason why California alone suffers such regular outbursts of these uniquely destructive fires.

As Lisa Fletcher reported, South Carolina is among the states using a different management strategy.

Pritchard: Whenever you burn on a regular basis, it reduces the chance of there being a catastrophic wildfire. The crew is doing that with a “prescribed burn.” A fire set and contained to a defined area, under specific weather conditions.

Pritchard: If a fire were to come in here, say in the summer by lightning or anything like that, the intensity is going to be much less than if it had never been burned.

South Carolina is a leader in this practice, recently conducting prescribed burns on more than 340,000 acres of land. That’s more than what 9 western states burned, combined.

Ron Holt, Pritchard’s colleague at the South Carolina Forestry Commission, says a contrary mindset in the west may contribute to what fuels those catastrophic blazes.

Ron Holt: Land managers, who try to burn, whether it’s a private or federal, they have to go through so much, regulations and get approvals. And by the time they go through the process, that much more fuel has built up on the ground. And the land manager may have to start over with the burn plan.

California’s problems were predictable and predicted. Donald Trump as candidate Trump was among those warning about fire disaster looming in California.

Donald Trump: I was with the head of Austria. He said, “you know it’s a shame, I see all those forest fires in California,” and all they have to do is clean their forest, meaning, rake it up, get rid of the leaves, leaves that are sitting there for five years.

While federal taxpayers have little control over California’s policies, they’ll ultimately be picking up much of the cost of the fallout—as they have in the past—estimated in the billions.

Sharyl (on camera): Governor Newsom has called for an independent investigation into the dry fire hydrants and water shortages.

Watch video here.

Follow The Science by Sharyl Attkisson

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

2 thoughts on “(WATCH) LA Fires”

  1. How about from now on, if California can not manage their forest areas and manage clean ups and some controlled burns, then the American pocketbook is closed to them. What impetus do they have to clean it up? The US taxpayer takes on the budget burden, as usual; PG&E throws some money at it through fines and the state of CA builds its coffers for their next “bright idea”, like a high speed rail, or sanctuary for illegals.
    When deaths result from these fires, someone at PG&E needs to serve time for manslaughter, for not maintaining their equipment. Someone at the state level needs to serve time for NOT properly managing the forest, for endangering the public, for destruction of private (and public) property, for water not being stored in the reservoirs, for the deaths and destruction, and for the loss of insurance coverage due to their lax policies and state restrictions on people clearing brush at their OWN properties.
    Newsome wants to be the big dog; well, he should be required to put his personal fortune where his mouth is, if he’s so confident that he is correct in his policies. The people of California, heck, the US government should sue his butt off for endangering people, for killing people, to give the victims the money to start over.

Scroll to Top